


we are only what we always were

by TheSpaceCoyote



Series: Huxloween 2019 [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Violence, Rebirth, Rituals, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 06:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20849084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: The body in his arms is wrapped up in a battle-worn cowl to keep its warmth from escaping, a desperate bid to prevent death from seeping in too much, to the point where it’d permanently infect pale flesh and delicate bone. It would be too late, then. Even the pyre couldn’t save him.Kylo has to hurry.





	we are only what we always were

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Huxloween! I'm going to be doing a couple of drabbles here and there, as the prompts interest me.
> 
> This was a really random idea inspired by the Day 1 prompt, "bonfire." Bit different from the usual fare. Don't let the tags scare you, it has a happy ending!

Far into the mist-choked depths of the woods, a pyre has already been built. 

The body in Kylo’s arm is still warm. He’d wasted no time coming here. He can’t even remember what happened in between then—the horrible then—and now, the chilling denouement, the race to the finish before the story ends for good. He plows through the cold mud and shingly undergrowth, kicking it up in his haste, leaving devastated scours in earth that hasn’t seen bootprints in so very long. 

A ghost of panic on his breath. 

The pyre beckons, twisted fingers of mossy wood scraping at the sky above. Kylo sees it in his mind’s eye—has seen it in his dreams before when he didn’t know its purpose and took it as mere symbolism—then steps into the clearing where vision and reality merge seamlessly into one. 

The air in the clearing feels rarefied, and through the scent of fog and wet loam Kylo stills smells blood, blood that’s welled and thickened and sealed without stopping, ready to settle permanently into fabric that used to be so sleek and sound. Structured, like a tower of stubborn constancy thought unconquerable, beacon at the top now burnt out. Everything is falling apart, bathing Kylo’s world in a darkness that truly scares him, but despite that determination pushes him forward. Forging towards the pyre, where he could, perhaps, weld it all back together. 

The body in his arms is wrapped up in a battle-worn cowl to keep its warmth from escaping, a desperate bid to stem the tide of death, to prevent it from seeping in to the point where it’d permanently infect pale flesh and delicate bone. It would be too late, then. Even the pyre couldn’t save him. 

Kylo has to hurry.

He sweeps across the fissures running like lightning cracked through the cobalt earth, feeling the ancient electricity sing through the treads in his boots. He crushes clumps of dirt that have sat there soaking up the Force for centuries, disturbing all holy stillness in his desperation. 

Kylo has never been one to kneel, not since he seized the reins of power for himself, but he kneels now, at the edge of the pyre. Body in his arms held not in offering, but in request, begging a greater power to redress his failure. He feels a hum around him, one of ancient life, curious as to which of their many conduits comes entreating to their hallowed copse. Ghostly presences—Kylo thinks of them as fingers, because it's comforting to make them human, and because he can’t describe it otherwise—brush up against the walls in his mind, and he lets them in. Unlike humans, they mean no harm. They merely want to search the depths of his devotion, to uncover whether it’s genuine, and how much he’d be willing to give if they were to grant him his wish.

Kylo allows it. He already knows he’d give up anything for this. For even a _ chance _ at this. 

A flutter of wind that sifts through the dust at his feet and a retreat of the presence in his mind tells him his plea has been accepted, so he rises. 

The weight in Kylo’s arms reminds him of better times. He’s afraid to let go, even though he knows it’s the only way to get those moments back, keep them in his embrace for good. So he kisses the body through the shroud, feeling the fading lips between the tatty weave of his own cowl. They still taste like blood. Kylo licks it from his own lips, savoring the iron, before he finally leans away and leaves the body in the cradle of the pyre. He takes a step back. 

Kylo lights it with a thought. The brittle bark at the base of the pyre bursts into flame, white-hot and crimson-edged, a mirror to his weapon, his anger, his failings. He’s always been too powerful for his own good yet not mindful enough to use that strength to keep those close to him safe. 

But he’s being given a second chance, a blessing from the Force. He won’t waste it. 

The body catches fire quickly. Prodigious tongues of flame consume the shroud wrapped around it, threadbare black giving in to a crackling red glow. Kylo stares at it until his eyes water and his skin tightens from the heat, not daring to blink or look away. He knows he has to witness this, and what’s more—he _ wants _ to. 

The pyre burns and burns, fire licking up the branches nesting around the body until they crack and fall. A chorus of sparks ascend into the air, winking and dying as they carry on the wind.

It burns until the pyre is nothing more than a barrow of ash scattered with blackened ribs of bark. Only then, when the embers have died to a smolder, does Kylo dare breach the circle of scorched earth. Impatience overrides reverence, then, and he throws aside the burnt-out bones of the pyre, searching for what lies at its heart.

And beneath the revelation of the moonlight above Kylo finds a body—no, a _ man _ lying untouched amidst the blackened crucible, all remains of the cowl immolated into nothing to leave pale, smooth skin and glistening amber, pooled like liquid, tempered like armor, in the crater left by a blaster’s fatal bolt. 

Kylo falls to his knees, overwhelmed, watching as eyes lined with filigree gold open to reveal an ethereal green glow, every inch now perfectly reforged into something inconceivably greater, more pure and _ powerful _ than he ever was before. Kylo feels something pang in his chest, as the fractures in his heart pull back into place by gravity, chambers filling with relief as their walls seal and mend in elation. 

The beacon has been relit, and he feels it draw him safely home. 

Tears drip down Kylo’s face as his hands find the man’s cheeks, eyes falling to a worshipful close, blindly tracing the new freckles like sparks across the skin. 

“Armitage Hux,” he whispers, the familiar name thrumming with new life on his tongue. “Rise to me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up on [Tumblr](http://thethespacecoyote.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heir_of_breath7/).


End file.
